Stabat Mater
by Japanese and Chocolate
Summary: At the Cross her station keeping, stood the mournful Mother weeping, close to her son to the last. Christmass present for rowan d on LJ.


**Title:** Stabat Mater

**Characters/Pairng:** Helen/John, Ashley

**Summary: **At the Cross her station keeping,stood the mournful Mother weeping,close to her son to the last. Christmass present for rowan_d on LJ.

**A/N: **Based on the poem Stabat Mater (.org/wiki/Stabat_Mater#Text_and_translation) and inspired by Karl Jenkins Sancta Mater.

Her funeral had been held in a small chapel left over from when the Sanctuary had first been converted from a lofty and abandoned Cathedral. It was a beautiful ruin, gentle light flittering through the windows, as if all of nature grasped the importance of this moment, and promised to keep Ashley. Or, perhaps, the shadows were simply too impenetrable. Strong rays of light weakened and obliterated by a stronger and more twisted force. There were pews lined up perfectly, redundant as only four people had attended the funeral and all stood. The coffin itself was plain of adornments, cream silk lining the inside and lacquered wood protecting the remnants of Ashley's life. A book, a flower, a charm. Her necklace, releasing Ashley from the dark that had taken her.

She stood in black mourning clothes. No matter the cloth, funeral clothes always smothered her. As a child she had attended her mother's funeral, in the heat of summer, wearing petticoats and a black overcoat. Though free of the cumbersome clothing, the unpleasant sensation remained, reminding her of every death that passed before, every death to come. An outsider who watched her would say she bore such tragedy with remarkable forbearance, those few she allowed close knew better. Her head was held too high, her face too strained, her shoulders set as a warrior preparing for battle. She would brace herself for life without reason because she had to, because other lives depended on her, because Ashley would never have forgiven her for yielding to her grief and choosing the easy option.

Ashley had been the reason she had continued. Through battle after battle, loss after loss. She had stood upon the North Tower, twenty-three years ago, unsure if she should step backwards or forwards. One promised peace, the other further pain and torment. The lights of the city before her were tempting, begging her to step closer. They emulated stars, beauty and elegance. They concealed so much. But to stand back, to continue, was almost impossible to contemplate. The wind was strong here as well, cooling after a humid summer day. Strong enough to push her off if she let it. It was one of the reasons she loved this spot. One small push, one misstep, and she was free of her responsibilities. But a small part of her mind remembered Ashley, frozen in cryogenic stasis, waiting to live. So she went forward with Ashley's birth, acknowledging that, in a way, she was killing herself. She knew, the moment that this new fragile link was destroyed, she would be too.

Lost in her musings, Helen did not notice that a great deal of time had passed. As always it ran off her skin like water, leaving her untouched. The person who now observed her would be one most qualified to tell. He had spent hours simply memorising the lines of her face. She had not grown older physically, but there was a new depth to her, inconceivable to a thirty-year-old feminist in 1880s London. The woman who was then so eager to look forward was now forced to look back on her life.

He looked at the casket that lay before her. She would be tormented by memories of what had been done, he would be tormented by what could have been. Despite their differing roles in her life, both had lost a daughter.

They stood there for an immeasurable amount of time, each isolated by their grief and connected by a shared loss and understanding. Unexpectedly, Helen's voice cut through the silence. "John," his name was haltingly whispered, no doubt the first word she had spoken in hours, "take me away." To hear his strong goddess pleading so desperately destroyed his own grief utterly. He took on the role he believed Ashley would expect him to take, the role he had sworn to take when he asked her father for her hand. He would protect her. "Of course."

Despite his assurance, he was at a loss on where to take her. Somewhere entirely hers. His immediate thought was the tower he had often glimpsed her standing on, surveying her domain. With a thought they were there. Exposed to the elements and forced to sit in one of the corners, but there nonetheless.

He would not allow Helen to stand on one of the edges, no doubt in his mind what she would attempt, but she seemed content to laze in his arms, barely lucid. Startlingly, her black hair and clothes made her indistinguishable from the shadows, as if she was fading into them. Again, nothing like the vibrant blonde from his youth who had practically glowed in the dark.

"I failed her." Her voice lacked the grief and tension that had shadowed her every word since Ashley's death, nor the broken pain it had after the service. She was completely apathetic, reduced to burying her emotions. It scared him.

He could not refute the statement, for Helen would counter any argument he made. If she determined herself to be at fault, she would act as such and no-one would be able to convince her otherwise. What he could do was let her speak, let her find the root of her grief and destroy it herself. He could listen as she said just how she had failed Ashley, and found her own justifications to be illogical. She did love logic. He could listen as she talked about Ashley's childhood, which he had only seen from afar, to distract herself from her false conclusion. He could do so much without uttering a word.

The steady stream of self-accusations and loathing came as expected. He remained silent, steady at her back. Reminding her of his presence only by moving his hand up and down her arm. She continued until she could find no more to blame on herself, and turned to how Ashley had been the least deserving of her death.

"She liked to dance." She said, almost as if she was afraid that, by speaking the memory aloud, she would lose that aspect of Ashley. "Never ballet, but she enjoyed ballroom dancing. I taught her when she was a child and she would forever be pulling on Henry, forcing him to dance while I played the piano."

It was something he would never have guessed for himself, but she had inherited her mother's grace and values, why not her love of dancing? He could recall clearly that, in his brawls with her, she had moved surely, showing off even, executed moves he would not have expected. Instead of fighting, she was dancing.

"She was, however, obstinate when it came to learning music. At first I tried to teach her piano, but she would practically smash the keys. It was awful." He felt that, had the circumstances been different, she would have smiled at the recollection. "Failing that, she spent at least three months learning every instrument known to man. Eventually I was convinced that no amount of practice would ever make her musician." He could hear more in her voice with each word, a sliver of emotion that reassured him she was not absolutely obliterated by the service he encouraged her to organise and attend.

"She was good at school. Practically straight-A's, If you discount her scripture class, which she was prone to skipping. You would expect her to excel at science, living all her life surrounded by it, but she particularly enjoyed History and English. Inherited from you I suppose. Or perhaps she simply enjoyed using her imagination." Each new revelation gave him some solace that his daughter did, in fact, lead a full life. Each remembrance seemed to console Helen.

"Her grades took a secondary importance when she was old enough to accompany me on missions, or at least, when she thought she was old enough. She had already learnt many hand-to-hand combat techniques that she had yet to put into practice. She also convinced me to let her learn to use a gun, citing constant invasions from varying abnormals within the Sanctuary itself. And then ever-so-subtly she wound her way into missions."

Her shoulders tensed and he feared she was reliving every injury Ashley had ever sustained doing field-work. She most likely had been the one to patch all them up. He could well imagine Helen berating Ashley about getting unnecessary injuries for reckless acts, fluorescent lights brightening Ashley's hair and making Helen's darker by comparison. Shock white bandages with blood already soaking through. Helen all but dragging Ashley to her room. He could tell these memories, no matter how routine and innocent at the time, were excruciating in retrospect. Still, pain and grief, while emotions he did not want her to feel, were an improvement on the distancing from reality he had witnessed earlier.

The tears that had temporarily halted once again began to flow, and he found himself joining her. Very few had ever seen him cry, Helen was the only one still alive. He was crying for Ashley, but also for the woman in his arms. Crying in response to her pain. His arms tightened around her shoulders and neither spoke a word for the remainder of the evening.

He hoped he had provided what she needed. That one day he would find redemption for the acts he had wrought on those closest to him, that one day he could tell Ashley he had protected her mother.

**When my body dies,**

**let my soul be granted**

**the glory of Paradise. Amen.**


End file.
